


Seeing Time

by atomicmayo



Series: Dewmie Fictober 2019 Fills [12]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Crushes, Drabble, Future Vision, Gen, M/M, Matchmaking, Pining, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-12-14 16:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomicmayo/pseuds/atomicmayo
Summary: From the Fictober 2019 prompt: "What if I don't see it?" Future vision is a cheap tactic to make crackships fanon. (This work has undergone extensive edits, so its publication date has been reset!)





	Seeing Time

In the past few days, Garnet had begun to notice a trend.

Bill Dewey had taken to sitting outside after his shift at the Big Donut. Around 6:08 PM, he would flop down with a book and a drink (_Frankenstein_ and iced tea, so far) on the bench he had commemorated a few years before as mayor. The bench faced the boardwalk, but occasionally he would twist around and stare in the direction of the Beach City stage. Between 6:17 and 6:23 PM, Jamie would make his way to the stage to rehearse one of his shows. They were both too far away to hold any sort of conversation, but Bill would wave and Jamie would wave back. They would exchange smiles and depending on whether Bill or Jamie would look away first, the other would let their glance linger just a second longer than what Garnet had been told is the widely accepted amount of time for two humans to look at each other.

On the fourth day of this, Garnet walked up to the bench at 6:11. She cast a shadow over Bill, who was turned around in the direction of the stage again and didn’t notice her approach.

"He doesn’t arrive until at least 6:17 - you know that."

Bill yelped and twisted back around, book flown, iced tea spilt and a leg brought up onto the bench to protect himself from whatever might have just made him jump.

"Er, hello, what did you--"

"You’re waiting for Jamie," she said simply.

Bill’s cheeks turned a deep ruby red as he fought for an excuse, "I _was_ taking a break before I walked home to start dinner," he corrected, but sighed and added guardedly as he stared down at his book, "but you’re right. Jamie usually shows up soon and I usually wave at him."

"You should go speak to him."

"And say what, exactly?" He asked slowly.

"You’ll know," she replied with a tone of finality and with a slight upward tilt of her chin up toward the sky. It was the kind of statement that would make humans typically feel resolute in her advice, or at least pick up on the conversation being closed for further debate. Bill felt awash with neither of these things and scoffed bitterly.

"I doubt that," he stared at the same paragraph in his book he had tried to read four times already, voice low, "back when I was mayor, I needed note cards to get me through any speech longer than two sentences. I also had an excuse to talk to Jamie when I was mayor because he ran the theater. Unless I have a reason, I’ll probably choke after ‘hi’."

Garnet was silent for a moment - to Bill, inscrutable. He was reminded of how difficult it was to understand his son on any given day before Garnet finally said, "I can’t tell you what to say, but I can try to show you what may happen if you say it."

"Try to… show me?" Bill raised an eyebrow at her and stood up cautiously, "what if I don’t see it?"

"You will," she replied.

She kissed her own index finger and promptly flicked him on the nose.

Bill flinched and his nose crinkled reflexively. He went through the beginnings of several different words, among them a ‘hey’ and a ‘that hurt’ and a ‘why did you just-’ but they all died away when he saw the tiniest sparkle directly in front of his face and reality start to fade. Future vision quickly took hold, and Billiam Dewey found himself observing multiple streams of time at once. He tried looking backward in time exactly once and saw nothing - he found comfort in that.

In the real world, he stood there for about a minute with his jaw hanging open slightly, pupils huge. Pearl and Amethyst had leisurely walked up to observe.

"Uh, is he okay?" Amethyst snorted, already debating whether to draw something on his face with a permanent marker, or take his shoes to use as gravy boats.

Seconds ticked on into minutes. Onion walked by purposefully with a machete. No one noticed him.

"Why are we all standing here?" Pearl seemed legitimately confused at the waste of time, "he should be fine, why don’t we just..."

"Wait," Garnet silenced her.

A few seconds more, and Amethyst and Pearl jumped as Bill suddenly rushed forward and grabbed Garnet’s hands, back to reality and looking ecstatic.

"Oh my gosh, thank you. I’ll talk to him! Right away! If there’s anything I can do in return I-"

"Steven and Connie get a free donut every day," Garnet said mechanically.

"Every Tuesday," Pearl corrected.

"Every Tuesday," Bill repeated to confirm, "got it! Thank you again!" Bill smiled wide at Garnet before jumping up. He quickly strode off in the direction of the stage and met Jamie half-way.

"Good luck! Remember: it isn’t weird to buy him flowers!" Garnet shouted as Bill ran off.

Jamie glanced at Garnet as Bill approached him.

"What’d she say?" He asked.

"Oh, no idea," Bill lied with a shrug and mentally noted to hit up the florist soon. Jamie seemed pleasantly surprised to be talking to someone and they began chatting animatedly as they wandered toward the stage together.

"Aww, Matchmaker Garnet! Hooking up all the sad sacks in town," Amethyst cooed.

"It _is_ kind of pathetic to see them both alone all the time - maybe they’ll be good for each other." Pearl agreed, operating more than a little from a position of enlightened self-interest.

"I think so," Garnet smiled and looked down at the gems in her palms.


End file.
